Ironopolis

by Glen James Brown

  Ranjit said, ‘I feel like I’m in here at least a couple of times a month, but it’s usually the normal care-home stuff, you get me? But hawk attacks? This is a new one.’

  The bird handlers were carrying away the final cages. Some of the birds inside stared out darkly from behind the bars, while others slept – or feigned sleep – their heads tucked beneath wings. They were so still on their perches that if I hadn’t just been the gory climax of an airborne toupee-snatch, I would have sworn them to be the work of a taxidermist. Through the large day room windows, I watched as they were loaded into a white transit van emblazoned with the logo: CLEVELAND BIRD SANCTUARY. I saw Gus go in. He seemed profoundly disinterested, and I envied him. The wounds he had left here today were, for him, already forgotten. He suffered no guilt, thus made no mistakes. Caged though he may be, his future was unshackled by his past.

  ‘A few more minutes and you’ll be ready to rock and roll,’ Ranjit said, and I thought of Marty Wilde, and then of Henry alone (or maybe not), dressed in all his rings and finery, his lungs and mind collapsing at the end of that final left. After Gus had been recaptured, I’d pulled Paula aside just as she was leading Kimberly upstairs. I regurgitated the scene in Henry’s room, his confession. And maybe it was the blood leaking down my face, or the impending phone calls to the residents’ offspring she had to make, but she cut me off with a guillotine-sharp: Henry is ill. Then she led a worried-looking Kimberly through the door, which shut behind them with a resounding clunk.

  ‘Hey, man,’ Ranjit said, taking a stab at levity, ‘you look good for an OAP. What’s your secret?’

  ‘I’m just visiting.’

  ‘Cool. Family or friend?’

  ‘Mobile librarian.’

  He busied himself with my dressings. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Cool, cool.’

  Would there arise an opportunity to pass a few words with Kimberly? Would that be inappropriate? Or would she smile at me again, as she had earlier? Either way, better she came back before Ranjit finished patching me up. That way, at least, my continued presence would be above reproach.

  ‘And…we’re…back…iiiiiiinnnnnnn business,’ Ranjit said, prodding my wounds for the final time. The stinging had already greatly subsided, replaced by a deep, fuzzy ache. Ranjit began putting his equipment away. ‘So where you headed now?’

  ‘Home, I guess.’

  ‘Taking it easy, yeah?’

  ‘Something like that. Anyway,’ – I waved my hands nebulously about my bandaged head – ‘thank you.’

  ‘Anytime,’ he said, and strolled over to where James Stewart was still receiving treatment.

  I lingered in the hallway. The toppled monitor had been removed, but a scattering of small brown pellets remained. The old lady was right, where were Gus’s manners? The door Paula and Kimberly had disappeared behind was locked. Through the reinforced glass, I could see a flight of stairs but nothing more. There was no buzzer or intercom, no member of staff around to grant me passage. To prevent residents from wandering abroad, the main entrance was comprised of two sets of airlock-like double doors, the inner set of which were activated by a keypad on the wall. Paula had mentioned the four-digit code earlier, but after everything that had happened, I couldn’t remember. But there was definitely an 8 in there somewhere, I thought. I again cast around for assistance – perhaps from the elusive Leanne – but I was quite alone. Outside, falling dollops of snow lent texture and depth to the darkness. It was lying quite thickly.

  I tried some codes: 8-8…yes…8-8-something…4? I tried all ten permutations of the third digit, but the light on the keypad remained red. My finger hovered over the numbers as if I were on the verge of executing another plan of action, but I had no other plan of action.

  Because you’re a Mammy’s boy, Alan. Just like Dad always said – a big, balding Mammy’s boy who still needs his hand holding. Well, in case you’ve forgotten, Mammy’s resembled the inside of a Hoover bag for some time now. And as for Kimberly – you and I both know you don’t got the moxie, kid. Not after the last debacle.

  I typed 1-2-3-4. No dice.

  Not after the cuajada.

  Of course, I knew being nice to clients was part of her job, but over time I began wondering whether, to her with me, it meant as much as it did to me, with her. I never made an appointment, just shuffled in at the end of the day when the place was empty (and after her assistant Gillian had gone home), and she always smiled when I entered. A real smile deepening the crowfeet around her eyes, even when those eyes were sad, as they frequently were. Our chats as she cut my hair were precious to me, and later, at home, when I replayed them in my mind, I marvelled at the fluidity with which we moved together from topic to topic. Ordinarily, such exchanges would have been ersatz and awkward for me – especially with women – but with Corina, wonder of wonders, it was anything but.

  Not that it strictly mattered. She was married and had talked enough in the abstract about her husband Max for me to deduce that they were reasonably happy. Slowly, however, any mention of Max ceased and one day, yowling in its absence, her wedding ring was also gone. It was selfish of me, but I got my hopes up, and a churning anxiety rose in tandem. Self-doubt, that nasty by-product of opportunity: if Corina’s marriage was at an end, then the onus was now on me to drag my daydreams into reality. To do something. Declare my love. Lay it all on the table. I pep-talked myself before each visit – this was to be the haircut I’d tell her, but each time I choked. Each time I smiled politely at the back of my own cowardly head in the hand mirror and shuffled home simmering with self-reproach.

  Many haircuts followed in such fashion.

  It wasn’t until I overheard two ladies on the bus discussing the imminent closure of Corina’s salon that my hand was forced, as I secretly prefer my hand to be. The time for decisive action was upon me, but what form would it take?

  Cuajada.

  She’d told me the story during one of my first appointments. Her auntie Bea lived in Spain, in one of those expat communities full of sunburned beer guts and five hundred peseta fry up shacks. Torremolinos, maybe, or the Costa Brava. Once a year, Bea had flown over for a visit, bringing with her bags of strange Spanish sweets and several boxes of something called cuajada. Cuajada – (‘the j like this, Alan: hhkkaa, like you’re clearing your throat’) – was a powdered ewe’s milk-pudding and, yes, Corina said, she knew it sounded rank, but you shouldn’t knock it until you tried it. She and her brother Jim loved the stuff.

  Bea died when Corina was eighteen. She just went at her local karaoke bar, and nobody even realised until it was her turn to do Anita Baker’s Sweet Love. Some kind of aneurysm. Like snapping off a light.

  It happens more than you think, Corina said. And she never ate cuajada again. They didn’t do it in this country.

  Ah, but the internet did. Even with shipping, it didn’t come to much, and I was one mouse-click away from placing the order when a thought occurred: how much more special would it be if I made it myself? The traditional way?

  Alan, you mother-effing genius you.

  I had to go all the way to a farm in Great Ayton for the ewe’s milk, and, perhaps it was the Spanish-language recipe I was following, but my first attempts were disastrous. The milk boiled over on the hob, and a penetrating sourness filled the house, got into my clothes and skin. But after eight or nine attempts, I had it…or something approximating it. Cuajada. It tasted alright – kind of like an earthy Angel Delight, with lumps. I ladled the mixture into an old ice cream tub and left it to set.

  Corina looked even more pale and drawn than usual on her final day in business. ‘You’re a bit early, aren’t you?’ she said when I walked in.

  And indeed I was. See, I always plumped for the same style – a simple short back and sides – but her impending closure meant I hadn’t time enough to grow my hair to its required length. In desperation, I’d purchased a glossy celebrity mag
azine from Gary’s (possibly the last transaction Gary ever made. His last words to me: ‘See you next time’), in it found some Bright Young Thing on a red carpet, a perfect specimen with heaven-white teeth, waving to the unwashed from within a corona of flashbulbs. His hair was angular, severe, and, according to the accompanying text: “OMG! So NOW.” Inspecting myself in the mirror, I calculated I had just enough of my own hair remaining for Corina to be able to duplicate the style. She didn’t smirk or laugh when I showed her the picture. There was no malice in her, no venal cruelty, and this was why I loved her.

  During the haircut she opened up to me in a way she’d never done before. For the first time, she shared with me her fears and regrets, her hopes and dreams, and I glimpsed the dented beauty of her soul. In turn, I was thus emboldened to reciprocate with my own troubles. Our conversation was real, naked – I was sure she felt it too – and a weight lifted from me. The bleak future I worried lay ahead fell away, replaced by the possibility I could finally unleash the love of which I knew myself to be capable. For the duration of that haircut, at least, it all felt so mouth-wateringly close.

  Plus, I still had my trump card – the cuajada! Literally up my sleeve! (Though I am stumped as to why I shoved the tub up my cagoule like that instead of, say, putting it in a carrier bag like a normal person. Perhaps I didn’t want her guessing the contents, as I myself did to womens’ shopping on the bus.)

  My styling was nearing completion. Corina had shorn the sides of my head alarmingly close, and up top – what remained up top – had been swept asymmetrically to the right in a frozen, mousy-grey wave. Was I crazy, but did I actually look…good? At long last, was I now fashionable? She raised the hand mirror. The razored flesh at the back of my head was the blue-white of a plucked battery chicken.

  I love it, I said.

  When Corina went into the back to rinse her hands, I attempted to extract the tub from the cagoule before my courage failed me, but the box was wedged at an awkward angle and wouldn’t budge. While I tugged at it with increasing vigour, the spiel I’d worked out began to jumble, the gist of which was: Corina, I was recently looking for pudding ideas for a dinner party I’m having with friends (yes, friends), when I stumbled across this cuajada recipe. The name rang a bell, and I thought, ‘Where have I heard that before?’ Then it came to me – hadn’t you once mentioned enjoying it? Well, I thought I’d whip you up some…at which point I’d give her the pudding and ask if, whenever was convenient for her, perhaps she wouldn’t mind having a cup of, ah, tea with me. At least that was how it went in my head. I had not envisaged wrestling the unwieldy bulk out of my sleeve as sweat – hot and salty – trickled into my mouth.

  Corina returned. ‘What are you doing Alan?’ she quite reasonably asked.

  When the first globs of cuajada splattered onto the floor, the salon melted into a vortex of hysteria. Sensing Corina’s disgust, I scuttled to the door with my cagoule clutched to myself as if I were a heavily pregnant woman whose waters had just broken. On the precinct, I almost knocked over a young woman who called me a far from inappropriate word, given the circumstances, but I didn’t stop to apologise. I ran – limped – home, leaving globules of cuajada in my wake, much like Hansel and Gretel had once done in order to navigate a dark and scary world which wished to devour them.

  ‘1348,’ said a voice from behind me. Startled, I turned to see Kimberly.

  ‘The year of the Black Death,’ I heard myself say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ah, nothing.’ Not trusting myself to spew more idiocy, I concentrated instead on punching in the code. The light on the keypad flashed green and the doors whined open on their robotic hinges.

  ‘That’s never happened before,’ Kimberly said, looking at my newly bandaged head, my rapidly thinning hair. Her hazel eyes dropped to my cagoule. It was freshly torn where I’d sewn it up after the cuajada incident. There was blood on it now, too.

  I adopted what I hoped to be a breezy tone. ‘Really, I’m pretty lucky if you think about it. I mean, how many people get to experience a predator up close like that? Only rodents, I suppose, but they don’t live to write about it in their memoirs.’

  ‘You’re funny,’ she said.

  ‘Small birds, too. The occasional frog.’

  Stop talking, Alan. Stop talking right now.

  The doors finished opening. Freezing, snow-laced air swirled in to cool the sweat that had broken out on my upper lip.

  ‘What will happen to Gus?’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The bird. What will happen to him?’

  A strand of blonde hair tumbled down over her eye, and in that moment I was prepared to face down a hundred hawks just to be the one who got to tuck it back.

  ‘I raised him,’ she said. ‘I’ve known him since he was an egg. They do anything to him over my dead body.’

  ‘Birds of prey do tend to prey on things,’ I said. ‘Clue’s in the title.’

  ‘Aye, but as the boss-lady just yelled at me upstairs, all it takes is one complaint. One busybody wanting to know why Granddad’s head looks like burger meat.’

  I tried to keep up with Kimberly’s brisk pace. We were halfway across the car park, the wind full in our faces, heading towards to the waiting van. The other bird handlers were huddled inside the cab, lit moodily by a single bulb. Looking around, I could see no mobile libraries parked anywhere.

  ‘The aborigines,’ I said, ‘believed the moon had fire just like the sun, only the moon was too selfish to share. So the story goes a sparrowhawk flew up and stole it for them.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Kimberly said.

  ‘I read it somewhere.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re really interesting.’

  ‘You’re interesting too.’ Silence. Then I said, ‘Well…I probably should…’

  ‘Aye,’ she replied, ‘me too.’ But she didn’t move.

  This is it, Alan! This is all you’re going to get!

  I opened my mouth without knowing what would come out. At the same moment one of the handlers honked the horn.

  ‘Bye,’ I murmured. I turned and limped towards the main road.

  ‘Wait,’ Kimberly said.

  My heart leapt. She stood with her hands in her armpits for warmth, snow in her hair.

  ‘Yes, Kimberly?’ I said.

  ‘You won’t, will you?’

  ‘Won’t what?’

  ‘Complain. You won’t, will you?’

  Top deck of the 551. Ten or eleven items in the woman’s shopping bag: a probable microwavable chicken korma, a jar of sweet ‘n’ sour sauce, some chocolate digestives, and…could it be? Was that a box of Pizzips!? From my seat five rows behind, I judged the woman to be in her early thirties, her full lips rendered in burgundy, and a kink of black hair escaping from under her mustard bobble hat. With a death-mask blankness to her features, she stared out at the complex configurations of snow and streetlight shifting against the bus window. Knitted mitts obscured her ring finger, but for once I wasn’t concerned. I had other things on my mind.

  I’d recognised Mam’s letters the instant they dropped onto the doormat last month; my whole life leaping out of that package to uppercut me. In the final year of her life, she’d spent hours propped up in bed composing long letters that were shrouded in mystery. Who was she writing to? And what information did she possess that could possible require so many pages to convey?

  So I asked her.

  Aunt Agnes, Mam said.

  A satisfactory answer. Aunt Agnes had recently moved with her husband to Exeter. Yet…if Mam was writing to her sister, why did she only compose (and go out to post) the letters when Dad wasn’t around?

  Later, as she became weaker and her letter writing took on a greater sense of urgency, I got closer to the enigma. No longer able to make it to the post box under her own steam, she finally enlisted me
into her confidence, and this was when I discovered that the addressee was not in fact Agnes, but something by the name of Ananke Acquisitions. This, of course, only ratcheted up my thirst, but Mam made me promise two things before engaging my services – ask no questions, and don’t tell Dad.

  I agreed, though it almost drove me crackers to do so, just as it did when, once or twice, a return letter arrived. My mother’s name in bland, computer-printed type, the creamy caliper of the envelope; I craved steaming them open like they did in detective films. The urge over time becoming a bone-knit itch multiplied thousand-fold as my myriad questions jostled against my commitment to not rock the karmic boat while she died. Oh, that and my simple cowardice at being caught, of course.

  You can imagine, then, how strange it was to be once more holding Mam’s letters. They were bundled together inside a large padded envelope addressed to Vincent Barr, the sender apparently unaware of my father’s recent incarceration and subsequent death. Aside from the letters themselves, there was nothing else inside except for a single sheet of paper on which was printed one sentence. Times New Roman, bold, all caps. An uncanny echoing of words Doug had once directed at me, about my father:

  YOU DON’T KNOW WHO YOUR SON IS

  The page was unsigned.

  I turned my attention to my mother’s letters. Her handwriting…her fs were like my fs, or rather, mine were like hers – looping treble clefs that stood apart from the rest of her somewhat squat and ordinary penmanship. She’d taught me the alphabet on the backs of old rolls of wallpaper.

  Initially, the contents of the letters were puzzling. My brain simply refused to compute…but then, as I read the final one and the shock kicked in, I experienced an almost narcotic flood of relief which, for a while, outweighed even my astonishment. I was not my father’s son.